Today’s customers expect businesses to know them, serve them quickly, and make every interaction effortless.
According to Sujay Saha, Founder and CEO of Cortico-X and former leader of PwC’s Digital and Customer Strategy practice, he joins us on the latest episode of Business Trends Today to address how small businesses may be better positioned than larger competitors to meet that bar, provided they focus on experience rather than efficiency alone.
Over the last few years, customers’ expectations regarding their wants and needs have changed. But according to Saha, those changes are contingent on technological evolution. He said, “With the rampant usage of AI and what the potential of AI is, that is creating an expectation in the customers that everything is way faster.” He also notes that organizations themselves are facing growing pressures to rethink how they meet those expectations across every touchpoint.
“If the organizations are not viewing their business through the lens of the experience…[it] becomes even more important because that’s how you uncover where are the gaps, where are the opportunities, where are the different shooters of tomorrow for you to create.”
Saha argues that efficiency gains are a “zero-sum game” with limited long-term benefits. He insists that businesses have always been about the transaction of experiences, a dynamic that has remained unchanged across technological eras. The lasting differentiators, he believes, will come from creating value, rather than merely cutting costs or speeding up transactions.
AI levels the playing field
As a small business owner himself, Saha believes that “AI is an amazing leveler” while legacy systems and approval layers tend to slow larger companies down when adapting to change. For instance, he believes that small business owners can quickly adapt by using AI to restructure workflows, such as HR or onboarding, in just a few days. This opportunity extends not only to customers but also to employees and other stakeholders in the business.
According to Saha, friction often arises late in the customer journey, well after it could have been addressed. He points out that issues can emerge when a salesperson sets expectations during a sale, only for the mismatch to become apparent during the servicing phase. As a result, Saha believes that business owners often don’t recognize these gaps until they have already impacted the customer relationship.
Rebuilding the workflow
Business owners should identify one clearly underperforming area of operations rather than trying to overhaul everything at once. Saha recommends picking a “no-regret area” and viewing that area through the lens of the full customer and employee journey. The fix should rebuild the entire workflow end to end, rather than swapping AI into a single existing step.
Ultimately, Saha’s core message is that AI’s real value for small businesses lies not in saving costs, but in giving owners the speed and flexibility to redesign the customer experience, an advantage larger, legacy-bound competitors will struggle to match.
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